Monday, November 30, 2009

The aftershocks from the Swiss vote on the minaret ban are still rumbling across the globe. The response thus far from the Muslim world has been somewhat muted. Perhaps the OIC is waiting for Switzerland’s high court to overturn the referendum — there are rumors that such an outcome is a distinct possibility.

Condemnation of the Swiss among the world’s elites has been nearly unanimous. All major governments plus the Vatican have expressed shock and horror at this outbreak of “intolerance” and “Islamophobia”.

The architect of the Cologne mosque even referred to the referendum as “undemocratic”, which is a bit incoherent. War is Peace and Freedom is Slavery, eh wot?

In other news, a new Polish law applies the same rules to Communist symbols as it does to Nazi ones. It clears the way for a ban on the hammer and sickle, and may pose a threat to the trade in Soviet kitsch.

Meanwhile, a hospital in Bolivia funded by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now requires its nurses to wear the Islamic veil.

Under Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has greatly expanded its role in the economy, moving beyond its core monetary policy function to financing emergency bailouts of major financial firms in an attempt to stem the capital markets crisis.

Along the way, the Fed has drawn sharp criticism from skeptical lawmakers, some of whom are now moving to check the Fed’s power and expose its decisions to greater scrutiny.

In a more tempered assessment of Bernanke’s record, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told the ABC that the Fed chief has done a good job and has made bold decisions “that kept the economy from going into a depression.”

But, he added, “We need more transparency and accountability … The Fed needs to be looked at closely.”

In an unusual move, Bernanke on Friday spoke out in a column in The Washington Post against attempts to strip the Fed of some of its regulatory responsibilities and to expose it to audits by a congressional watchdog.

Such steps would “impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States,” he said.

A proposal to audit the Fed’s monetary policy deliberations won a committee vote earlier this month over the objections of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.

Husband worked with founder of socialist party in which Obama participated

President Obama’s new anti-Semitism czar was a 1960’s anti-war activist and community organizer whose husband worked with the founder of a socialist party, of which, according to documentary evidence, Obama was a member.

Hannah Rosenthal, a former Health Department regional director under the Clinton administration, started her position last week as the State Department’s new special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. She previously headed the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella U.S. Jewish organization.

[…]

Obama’s campaign last year denied the then-presidential candidate was ever an actual member of the New Party.

But the New Zeal blog dug up print copies of the New Party News, the party’s official newspaper, which show Obama posing with New Party leaders, listing him as a New Party member and printing quotes from him as a member.

The party’s spring 1996 newspaper boasted: “New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary).

Rosenthal, meanwhile, serves on the board of J Street, a lobby group that is mostly led by left-leaning Israelis and that receives funds from Arab and Muslim Americans.

J Street brands itself as pro-Israel. It states on its website it seeks to “promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically.”

J Street, however, also supports talks with Hamas, a terrorist group whose charter seeks the destruction of Israel. The group opposes sanctions against Iran and is harshly critical of Israeli offensive anti-terror military actions.

Hauling brush and old tires out of the woods in Allentown early Friday, members of the Service Employees International Union learned an Eagle-Scout-to-be is just as forgiving as he is trustworthy, loyal and helpful.

The Eagle Scout service project of Kevin Anderson, 17, of Upper Saucon Township was caught up in a national media firestorm after Nick Balzano, an Allentown union official, threatened to file a grievance over Kevin’s work clearing a trail in Kimmets Lock Park. Conservative pundits seized on the remark as evidence of the SEIU’s “thuggery,” and Balzano later resigned.

To show there were no hard feelings, SEIU members from as far away as Philadelphia and New Jersey accepted Kevin’s invitation to help with the project Friday.

“They completely agreed — to come out, to help, to make amends,” said Kevin, a member of Troop 301 of Center Valley. “I’m just glad it’s all coming together.”

As a result of the extra attention, Kevin found himself in charge of at least 40 volunteers, including Boy Scouts, parents, union members, a few Girl Scouts and the mayor of Bethlehem.

“I’ve never experienced leading this many people before,” admitted Kevin, who’s been working in Kimmets Lock Park with his 23-member troop since August. He spent Friday’s chilly morning juggling sign-in sheets and his cell phone, supervising installation of a silt fence and helping to rip a rusted drainpipe out of the ground.

Wayne MacManiman, who leads the SEIU’s Philadelphia-based mid-Atlantic district, said he thought Kevin’s invitation was a great idea.

“Everybody’s here on their day off, volunteering,” said MacManiman, of Burlington County, N.J. He noted SEIU members from Allentown had signed up to be part of the union’s 20-member crew.

Balzano’s remark, made in the aftermath of Allentown’s layoffs of 39 union employees in July, grabbed the attention of conservative commentators after it was published in a Nov. 15 Morning Call story. Pundits including Fox News commentator Glenn Beck and columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin slammed Balzano, saying the union was bullying Boy Scouts to protect their jobs.

Kevin had started planning the project long before Allentown’s July layoffs and had abided by union rules, making sure he and other volunteers worked only during off-hours. He never imagined he’d end up in the middle of a media frenzy.

“FOX called me at my house. NBC was at my high school,” Kevin said. Some reporters even tried to track him down through his soccer coaches, he said.

After a few initial interviews with The Morning Call, Kevin and his family tried to stay out of the media spotlight and referred all questions to officials with the Minsi Trails Council, which includes Troop 301.

When Morning Call journalists showed up at Kevin’s project Friday to interview and photograph him for this story, they were encouraged to help pick up trash and brush along with the volunteers — and did.

Even in the woods, politics were impossible to ignore. In the wake of U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent’s Nov. 17 letter supporting the Boy Scouts and calling on Balzano to apologize, Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan showed up in work clothes Friday morning. Callahan, a Democrat, is challenging Dent, R-15th District, for his seat next year.

Asked what it’s like to be directed by a 17-year-old, Callahan laughed. “I’d gladly take orders from Kevin,” he said. “I told him I was very impressed with how he’s handled this situation.”

Kevin and fellow Scouts had logged a combined total of 250 hours on the project before Friday, carving out the 1,000-foot trail in August while clearing brush that was taller than they were. Many seemed unsure what to make of the media attention but said they didn’t mind the extra help from the union.

“They’re volunteering, so I appreciate the time they put in to help out,” said Tony Bucha, 19, an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 301 and an Eagle Scout.

By 10:30 a.m. Friday, Kevin’s crew had cleared out what appeared to be at least a ton of tires, rusted car wheels, tree branches, old beer cans and other debris, in addition to installing a 400-foot silt fence.

“How did it get done so fast? Who’s in charge of this job?” Bruce Anderson teased his son as they surveyed the work.

Kevin has until his 18th birthday, 11 months away, to wrap up the requirements for the Eagle Scout rank. After he finishes the service project, he still needs to earn two more merit badges.

His dad suggested a public relations merit badge would help meet that requirement, but Scouting doesn’t have one.

“Looking back on this project, yeah,” Kevin agreed. If he’d been working toward a PR badge, “It would’ve helped a lot.”

“If you look at the media reports there appears to be an upsurge in the use of the sleepwalking defence,” says Michel Cramer-Bornemann of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis.

Thomas had a genuine sleep disorder, but Cramer-Bornemann is concerned that in many other cases, the sleepwalking and other sleep-related defences are misused. Studies on the causes of sleepwalking may eventually make it easier to identify who has a genuine sleep disorder that could occasionally result in violence, and who is making it up.

Lucid Dreamers

Last month, Ursula Voss of Bonn University in Germany and colleagues reported that even during lucid dreaming — a state in which some people claim to be able to control their dreams — some areas of the brain associated with intent stayed offline, while other areas associated with consciousness were active.

“As long as you are in a dream, you have no free rein on your actions and emotions,” says Voss.

Although this research didn’t look specifically at sleepwalkers, it tallies with a previous study by Claudio Bassetti at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, who once managed to manoeuvre a sleepwalker into a brain scanner during a sleepwalking episode.

He found the sleepwalker also showed no activation in the areas of the brain associated with intent, though emotional areas and those associated with movement were active.

“Our judgement is off and our ability to act out emotionally is on,” says Rosalind Cartwright of the Sleep Disorder Service and Research Center in Chicago. She believes a confirmed diagnosis of sleepwalking would make a strong defence in court, but says better tests are needed to establish who has a genuine sleep disorder.

DEARBORN, Michigan (Reuters) — At Tuhama’s Lebanese deli in Dearborn, and at bakeries and barbershops throughout town, it’s no secret the CIA is looking for a few good spies.

“There is a lot of talk, and nobody likes it,” said Hamze Chehade, a 48-year-old Lebanese-American, taking a bite of his chicken shawarma.

In dire need of agents fluent in Arabic, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has made an unusual public show of its recruiting effort in Dearborn — a city of 100,000 with the densest Arab population in the United States.

The agency has bought full-page ads in Arabic-language newspapers and it is rolling out TV ads aimed at luring Arab-Americans and Iranian-Americans to spycraft.

But despite a weak economy and high unemployment, the CIA will find it hard to hire here, residents say. Many see U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East as misguided and anger over the perceived mistreatment of Arab-Americans runs deep.

It won’t be easy to win hearts and minds here, they say.

“If anyone goes, they would be just going for the money, not following the heart,” said Chehade, a cabinet-maker who immigrated from Lebanon 21 years ago.

Now that the US Senate has voted to begin debate on their vision of a health scare bill, Congress has moved our entire country one step closer to the national nightmare of government-controlled health care that millions of people strenuously reject and simultaneously fear. If Nancy Pelosi’s bill placed one of the nation’s feet in the grave, then Harry Reid’s bill placed the other squarely in the path of the banana peel. All the while, Barack Obama has stood ready with the first shovel full of dirt. A couple more steps, and in we go…

President Obama’s much-anticipated speech at West Point Tuesday night [tonight] constitutes an opportunity with the potential to be as strategically momentous as Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. Mr. Obama is in a unique position to tell the truth about the nature of the enemy we confront, not just in Afghanistan but worldwide, and thereby put the effort to defeat that enemy on a sound, coherent and supportable footing. Will he rise to the occasion?

With a Muslim background and a year-long record of assiduous efforts to cultivate better relations with what he calls the “Muslim world,” the incumbent President can exploit the sort of latitude his anti-communist predecessor did thirty-seven years ago with an opening to Red China. If Mr. Obama’s bow to the Saudi monarch, his highly publicized addresses to Muslim audiences in Turkey and Egypt, his efforts to curry favor with the Palestinians and his co-sponsorship with the Organization of the Islamic conference of a resolution limiting free speech are of any positive value, they should afford him the running room to say the following…

In an comprehensive article, Pauline Peretz introduces the young Jewish lobby group, J Street, which is giving established Jewish-American lobbyists a run for their money. The liberal organisation, which enjoys the support of people like Jimmy Carter and Israeli writer Amos Oz, is pushing for the immediate end to settlement expansion and talks for a two-state solution. And unlike the conservative lobby group Aipac, it makes no bones about exercising sharp criticism of Israeli policy. “For its rivals, who have been established in Washington for several decades, it is a radical organisation, which is threatening the unity of the community and discrediting the positions of the Israeli government — and it is necessary to fight its influence. For liberal Jews on the other hand, J Street represents a chance to finally make themselves heard in Washington. And J Street is a valuable ally of the Obama administration, because it is able to make its critical position on Israel acceptable even to a public which tends to reject new policies. And the media, for its part, is fascinated by the impact of this meteorite in the Jewish world.”

Salahi served in same anti-Israel group as Obama’s Palestinian professor pal

The Virginia couple who allegedly crashed a White House state dinner is tied to Rashid Khalidi, a pro-Palestinian professor who excuses terrorism and has been a close associate to President Obama.

Michaele and Tareq Salahi met Obama in a receiving line at last week’s event, with a “deeply concerned and embarrassed” Secret Service stating it never checked whether the two were on the White House guest list.

Tareq Salahi served on the board of the American Task Force for Palestine, where Columbia University Professor Khalidi served as vice president. The American Power blog noticed both Salahi’s and Khalidi’s names have been scrubbed from the Task Force website, although Salahi’s bio still comes up on a Google cache search of the site.

The Task Force lobbies for a Palestinian state and demands the so-called right of return for Palestinian “refugees” — a formula Israeli officials across the political spectrum have warned could destroy Israel by population genocide, with the Jewish state forced to accept millions of Arabs, thus diluting its Jewish majority.

A group of Minneapolis teenagers have found themselves making headlines after publishing a video of themselves pushing people over in the street. Identified as of Somali origin, the pranksters will, our observer explains, only add fuel to the fire for the local anti-Somali press.

Security experts and the public alike were left reeling on Sunday after a Czech TV station revealed that Iraqi intelligence agents working for Saddam Hussein plotted an attack on the Prague headquarters of Radio Free Europe. Spokesman Jan Šubert of the Czech intelligence service told TV Nova that the agents planned a machine gun and rocket propelled grenade attack on the building in a plot ordered by Saddam Hussein.

The Danish parliament today passed legislation which will give police sweeping powers of “pre-emptive” arrest and extend custodial sentences for acts of civil disobedience. The “deeply worrying” law comes ahead of the UN climate talks which start on 7 December and are expected to attract thousands of activists from next week.

Under the new powers, Danish police will be able to detain people for up to 12 hours whom they suspect might break the law in the near future. Protesters could also be jailed for 40 days under the hurriedly drafted legislation dubbed by activists as the “turmoil and riot” law. The law was first announced on 18 October.

The Danish ministry of justice said that the new powers of “pre-emptive” detention would increase from 6 to 12 hours and apply to international activists. If protesters are charged with hindering the police, the penalty will increase from a fine to 40 days in prison. Protesters can also be fined an increased amount of 5,000 krona (671 Euros) for breach of the peace, disorderly behaviour and remaining after the police have broken up a demonstration.

The Danish police also separately issued a statement in August (pdf) applying new rules and regulations for protests at the climate conference, warning that “gatherings that may disturb the public order must not take place”.

Earlier this month, the Guardian published a letter by environmental activists that described the new law as “deeply worrying” and called for the Danish government to uphold their right to legitimate protest.

Tannie Nyboe, a spokewoman from campaigning group Climate Justice Action in Denmark, said the new law was designed to control civil disobedience during the summit. “These laws are a big restraint in people’s freedom of speech and it will increase the police repression for anyone coming to Copenhagen to protest. Denmark normally boasts of how open and democratic a country we are. With this law we can’t boast about this anymore.

“It will increase the repression of any protester or activist coming to Copenhagen. This law creates an image of anyone concerned about climate change being a criminal, which will of course also influence the general treatment of any activist who comes into contact with the police or other authorities.”

A Danish justice ministry confirmed that the laws had been passed today and would come into effect before the climate conference starts on 7 December.

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 30 — “I shall explain to the EU that this was not a vote against the Muslim religion, but against minarets as buildings”. Switzerland’s Justice Minister, Evelyne Widmer Schlumpf, was speaking on her arrival at a meeting of EU interior and justice ministers. At issue is the referendum in which Swiss citizens boycotted the building of minarets on their national territory. “In Switzerland, we honour freedom of worship: it is a very important right for us,” the Swiss minister said, acknowledging that the ballot’s outcome was not “a good sign for Switzerland”. “I am sure it will be possible to explain that our democracy holds this possibility of voting and that this was the outcome of the vote”, the minister said, insisting that this was not a vote “against the Muslim religion”. The current presidency of the EU, Sweden, has expressed surprise and regret at the result of the Swiss referendum. On his arrival at the European Council, the country’s immigration minister, Tobias Billstrom, said he was “somewhat surprised” and found it “strange” that this kind of matter should be decided by referendum. “In Sweden the question of the height of buildings is a matter for local administrations. It is unlikely that in Sweden such a matter would be down to the politician, partly because the right of worship is recognised in Sweden”, the minister pointed out. Sweden’s minister for integration, Nyamko Sabuki, went further, expressing “regret” that Switzerland should have decided such an issue in a referendum. “The Swiss system is a good one because it calls on its citizens to decide, but sometimes it can be used inappropriately, as has happened here”. “Europe does not have a minaret problem. There are no issues between Europeans and Moslems. Moslems are Europeans”, the Swedish minister underlined. “I do not understand what type of issue was being resolved in this referendum”, Sabuki stated. (ANSAmed).

Greece backs Turkey’s bid to become a full member of the European Union provided Ankara meets all its EU obligations, Greek Alternate Foreign Minister, Dimitris Droutsas has said in an interview with a German newspaper.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, elected leader of Ukip yesterday, is the first peer for a century to lead a political party. More significant, I think, is the fact that this is the first time for decades that a minor party has been led by a politician with deep roots in the British establishment — and formidable campaigning skills honed inside rather than outside the Palace of Westminster.

I came across Malcolm Pearson seven years ago, when I was working on an investigation for this newspaper into the BBC’s grotesque propagandising on behalf of the EU and the euro. Pearson, then a Tory peer, had sent a series of letters to senior BBC executives, naming instances of bias and pointing out precisely how they compromised the corporation’s charter obligations. These letters caused havoc at White City, not only because they came from the House of Lords, but also because Pearson had judged his tone and targets so carefully. They were a major factor in the BBC’s reluctant decision to give more air time to Eurosceptic arguments.

This morning David Cameron will be rejoicing, understandably, at the YouGov poll that shows him capturing northern marginals. But I’m sure he is displeased by the election of his fellow Old Etonian Pearson, who not only knows the Tory heartlands like the back of his hand, but has decided to launch a campaign against uncontrolled immigration and radical Islam that will resonate powerfully in those northern marginals.

You may think that Ukip’s new focus on the Islamification of parts of Britain is a dangerous strategy. And so it would be, if the party was in other hands. But Lord Pearson is still essentially a libertarian Tory: he would never stoop to sending out dog whistles to wavering BNP racists. His campaign against uncontrolled immigration and Sharia will be rooted in a defence of liberal democracy of the sort that other parties are too gutless to make.

The arguments against voting UKIP are still strong: Pearson wants to force a hung parliament, which would be a wretched result, since it would hand power to that most opportunistic of minority parties — the Lib Dems — rather than produce the realignment of British politics that he envisages. But Pearson still has (very) highly placed friends within the Conservative party, and if his presence on its borders can force the Tories to pay closer attention to public opinion on immigration and Europe, then he will have done us all a favour.

Castelli’s plans for the flag: “We should learn from Switzerland, and take a stand against Masonic, pro-Islamic ideology”

ROME — “Once again, the Swiss have shown us what civilisation is all about”. Overjoyed by the Swiss right’s referendum victory, the Northern League have come up with a new proposal. “We need to take a stand against the Masonic, pro-Islamic ideology to which even our political allies are sadly prone”, said Roberto Castelli, a senior party figure. “In the forthcoming constitutional reform bill, I believe that the Northern League may, and indeed must, ask for the cross to be added to the Italian flag”, he added.

THE NORTHERN LEAGUE — Roberto Calderoli, the Minister for Legislative Simplification, commented that “Switzerland has sent us a clear message: we need to put a check on Islamic politics and propaganda”. His words were echoed by Maurizio Gasparri, leader of the People of Freedom (PDL) in the Senate, who said that “Switzerland has been patient, but is now tired of rising immigration and the spread of Islam. The result of the referendum on minarets confirms this. We should continue to take a hard line in Italy, too, as is our sacrosanct right”. The Northern League MEP Mario Borghezio, meanwhile, praised “Switzerland’s courage”, adding that “the landscape in the historic homeland of federalism and freedom will be free from minarets, which have become more a dangerous symbol of the Islamic terrorist threat than places of worship. Long live white, Christian Switzerland!”.

Europe has long been condemning the communist regime, but none of the countries has gone as far as Poland, where a law was signed allowing people to be fined or imprisoned for keeping and buying communist symbols.

Twenty years after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the Polish government are about to completely erase memories of the Cold War past and make everything from the hammer and sickle and red flag to trendy Che Guevara t-shirts and posters illegal.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on Monday slammed Switzerland’s referendum to ban the construction of minarets on mosques in the Alpine country.

“It’s an expression of quite a bit of prejudice and maybe even fear, but it is clear that it is a negative signal in every way, there’s no doubt about it,” Bildt, whose country holds the current European Union presidency, told Svergies Radio (SR).

Swiss voters on Sunday approved by a majority of 57.5 percent a ban on minarets in a referendum.

Bildt said he found it odd that such a decision was put to a referendum.

“Normally Sweden and other countries have city planners that decide this kind of issue. To decide this kind of issue in a referendum seems very strange to me,” he said.

A Muslim woman from Kista north of Stockholm who was denied a job as a dentist after refusing to wear short-sleeved work clothes for religious reasons has lost her discrimination case against the Swedish Public Dental Service (Folktandvården).

“It’s incomprehensible,” the woman told The Local following the ruling by the Stockholm District Court.

Following the completion of her dental studies in January 2008, the now 29-year-old woman applied for a position with the public dental service in Stockholm.

During the hiring process, she was informed that the dental agency requires personnel to wear short-sleeved gowns when treating patients.

But the rules, put in place for hygiene reasons, came into conflict with her Muslim faith, which requires that she show as little skin as possible in public.

Looking for a solution, she said she would be willing to wear disposable arm sleeves over a long-sleeved gown.

“We presented evidence from Socialstyrelsen (National Board of Health and Welfare) that showed that using these disposable arm sleeves has the same level of hygiene,” she said.

After Folktandvården rejected the compromise, she sued the dental service for 150,000 kronor ($21,500) in damages alleging the organization’s refusal to accommodate her request to avoid short-sleeved work clothes amounted to discrimination.

But the Stockholm court sided with the dental service, finding that the decision not to hire the woman did not amount to discrimination.

In its ruling, the court cited health board regulations which recommend healthcare personnel use short-sleeved gowns when examining patients.

“Even it if means a disadvantaging of Muslims […], Folktandvården is required to follow the current guidelines for basic hygiene for the healthcare system,” the court wrote in its judgment.

The court also ordered the woman to pay 250,000 kronor to cover the dental service’s court costs, something which she said is not going to be easy.

“It’s pretty unacceptable. I’m not working right now and have no income,” she said, adding that she is currently supported by her father.

The 29-year-old told The Local she is considering an appeal, but has yet to make up her mind.

The Swiss vote on Sunday to ban mosques with minarets has spurred heated debate in neighbouring Germany, where the Muslim population’s plans to build houses of worship has created controversy

Signalling increased fears of the so-called “Islamification” of their country, Swiss citizens voted overwhelmingly to enact a constitutional ban on constructing minarets at mosques. The two right-wing parties that brought the issue to vote called the towers a symbol of Islam’s supposedly political agenda.

Head of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD) Kenan Kolat told Berlin daily Berliner Zeitung that the decision was “very regrettable,” adding that basic rights such as religious freedom should not be allowed to come to popular vote.

“A minaret belongs to a mosque,” Kolat said.

But Wolfgang Bosbach, a conservative Christian Democrat heading the parliamentary committee on interior policy, said that the vote should be taken seriously. He told daily Hamburger Abendblatt on Monday that the vote reflects a widely held fear of Islam within German society — though he said German laws provided enough solutions for practical decisions about minaret construction.

“But there are spectacular plans for large structures, such as in Cologne’s Ehrenfeld district or in Duisburg-Marxloh, for which there is a lot of resistance simply because of the size,” he told the paper.

Bosbach added that is “possible that some of these large buildings were planned to signal how strong Islam has become in Germany.”

But Sebastian Edathy from the opposition Social Democrats told Berliner Zeitung that the majority vote was “very problematic,” adding that countries guaranteeing religious freedom must allow members of different faiths to build houses of worship.

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — The call to prayer from minarets rung out yesterday across the entire Islamic world, involved in the last hours of the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid Al-Adha) and the height of the pilgrimage to the holy sites of Mecca, while surprise and in some cases anger spread among Muslim TV commentators and internet users when pan-Arab media announced to the Islamic world the news that the Swiss referendum for a ban on minarets had received support from almost 60% of voters. On the popular site for Islamic news Islamonline, the jurisconsult and rector of an Islamic university in the United States, Taha Alwani, polemically asked “why the Swiss are afraid of minarets but show not the least concern when they buy oil from Islamic countries, when their companies do business in Arab-Muslim capitals, or when they decide to hold Muslim money in their banks.” A thinly-veiled suggestion for a campaign to boycott Switzerland, but one which for the moment no one seems to be following. However, the news also received broad coverage in the two pan-Arab TV channels, which for many hours opened with “Switzerland Bans Minarets”. In attempting to explain to Muslim public opinion the reasons behind Swiss concerns, an Al-Jazeera TV host asked one of the supporters of the referendum in an interview “why did you decide to make all of Switzerland take the trouble to vote on only four minarets?”, referring to the only ones in the Confederation at the moment. On online blogs and forums, however, discussion was a good deal more heated, with anger showing through at times. “There is a war against Islam in Europe,” wrote a Libyan reader of the Al-Arabiya site. “Today minarets, tomorrow mosques,” said Said Ardallah on an Al Jazeera forum. “With their money in Swiss banks Jews have the country in the palm of their hands,” added Ardallah. Muslim residents in Switzerland were less radical in their comments. “Switzerland welcomed us and we must respect their values,” said ‘Muhieddin’ in Zurich, adding that “I wonder whether Islam the-religion-of-tolerance would show itself such when there is a need to grant authorisation for the construction of new churches in Muslim countries.”(ANSAmed).

(ANSA) — TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 30 — The outcome of the referendum held in Switzerland, to ban the building of minarets, has aroused much interest in the Israeli press and has come in for much criticism. As Maariv puts it: in Europe “a reaction has set in” against the Moslem population, being conducted by nationalistic and xenophobic forces in several countries simultaneously. Speaking in an interview on forces radio, Uriah Shavit, a researcher at Tel Aviv University and author of a book on Islam in Europe, stated: “This is a racist decision, perhaps the worst of its kind since the end of the Second World War… it is as if they had decided to cut all the ringlets out of the hair of religious Jews”. The same view has come from Sallah Aghbarya, spokesperson for the Moslem movement in Israel. An editorial in Maariv points out how in Europe “there are hundreds of Moslem preachers who inveigh against Christians, Jews and Hindus. Europe, having taken fright, prefers to hold its tongue and remain paralysed. If the referendum had been held on whether or not to expel them, it would have had a greater effect”. “Rather than tackling the content of the sermons in the mosques,” the paper concludes, “Switzerland has opted to concentrate on questions of architecture”. According to Shavit, behind the mobilisation of the Swiss against the minarets, there are also financial considerations: or rather the fear that their presence might lower the property prices in neighbouring areas. “As a nation that recognises freedom of worship, Israel should now openly condemn the outcome of the Swiss vote”.(ANSAmed).

(ANSAmed) — GENEVA, NOVEMBER 30 — With a surprise outcome after polls had predicted otherwise, 57% of the voters of the Swiss Confederation said no to the building of new minarets in the country. Supported by rightwing nationalistic-conservative representatives to say “no to the Islamization of Switzerland”, the ban affects neither the mosques nor the four minarets already in existence, but does inflict a harsh blow to the image of Switzerland, which boasts peaceful coexistence among different cultures, languages and religions. For the government and the majority of the parties which had campaigned against the initiative, it is a keen and awkward defeat which may cast a shadow over the image of the neutral country, especially as concerns its relations with the Muslim world. The Muslim community in the country — numbering about 350-400,000 — have expressed their disappointment and bitterness over the outcome. Those voting against minarets were in the clear majority. Only 4 of the country’s 26 cantons — with a population of 7.7 million — rejected the anti-minaret initiative: Geneva, Basel City, Neuchatel and Vaud. In other cantons the initiative was widely supported with significant percentages, such as in Ticino (68.09%) and the inner part of the Appenzello (over 70%). The outcome of the referendum changes the Swiss Constitution by adding the following line: “The building of minarets is prohibited”. A very short sentence, the impact of which still seems difficult to assess. Those supporting the initiative were also surprised at its success. The anti-minaret campaign was led by numerous representatives of the large Democratic Union of the Centre party (UDC), which like in its previous anti-immigration campaign played on the population’s sense of fear, with billboards showing the country invaded by threatening minarets and burqa-clad women. During their election campaign, they had said that minarets “have nothing to do with religion, but are Islam’s symbol of its claim to political and social power.” In Bern, the government had to admit defeat and formally announce that in Switzerland the building of minarets would be prohibited. However, the ban does not affect the four minarets already standing, and new mosques can still be built. Muslims can continue to practice their religion either individually or as a community, reassured the government. Even some of the defenders of the ban on minarets were adamant about this last point. “The ban on minarets will not change anything for Muslims, who will continue to be able to practice their religion, pray and meet together. It is simply a message that civil society would like to stem the political-juridical aspects of Islam,” said Swiss Member of Parliament and UDC member Oskar Freysinger. Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said that the outcome of the referendum was the expression of widespread fear among the populace as concerns Islamic fundamentalist movements. “These fears need to be taken seriously, and the Federal Council (government) has always done so and will continue to do so. However, the Federal Council felt that a ban on building new minarets was not an effective tool in the struggle against extremist tendencies,” she said. She then expressed concern over a potential negative impact on export to Islamic countries and tourism, which attracts many visitors to the country from the Arab world, especially the Persian Gulf. Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said that the government would work to explain the ban to the Islamic world. The disappointment of Muslims in Switzerland is enormous. In the eyes of Yussef Ibram, imam of Geneva’s Islamic Cultural Centre, it is a “catastrophic event. We placed out trust in the lucidity of the Swiss populace, and the outcome has come as an enormous disappointment.” Impromptu demonstrations of a few hundred participants sprung up in the afternoon in Bern and Zurich, with young protestors in Bern marching through the streets with candles and cardboard minarets, along with a banner on which “This is not My Switzerland” written.(ANSAmed).

Switzerland confronted an international backlash on Monday over a shock vote to ban new minarets and struggled to reassure stunned Muslims at home that they were not regarded as outcasts.

The Vatican joined Muslim leaders in expressing dismay after a referendum on Sunday voted for a constitutional ban on the construction of towers attached to mosques from where the faithful are traditionally called to prayer.

Some 57.5 percent of those who cast ballots supported the measure amid a high turnout by Swiss standards of 53 percent.

The result flew in the face of opinion polls that had predicted a ‘no’ vote, and caught out government ministers who had opposed the ban alongside the bulk of Switzerland’s political and religious establishment.

The government rushed to assure the country’s 400,000 Muslims, mainly from the Balkans and Turkey, that the outcome was not a rejection of the Muslim religion or culture.

However, the result was condemned in the world’s most populous Muslim nations and elsewhere in Europe as a display of intolerance.

Damaged image

Swiss newspapers also warned that the referendum had inflicted “spectacular damage” to the country’s international standing.

“Some people, traumatized by the crisis, put a vote of protest and suspicion, rather than hate or mistrust in the box. It has come out as a bomb,” Le Temps daily said.

The country’s leading business association, Economiesuisse, pressed authorities to approach Muslim nations to prevent potential harm to trade and tourism, while Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy Rey said plans were being drawn up for a diplomatic campaign abroad.

The imam of Switzerland’s biggest mosque, in Geneva, called on the Muslim world to “respect, without accepting,” the outcome, and to avoid abandoning ties with Switzerland.

But Youssef Ibram sharply criticized the Swiss government for not intervening more forcefully in defense of religious freedom before the referendum got off the ground.

“The most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote. Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community,” he added.

Members of the hard right Swiss People’s Party (SVP) — Switzerland’s biggest party — and other right wing groups brought the referendum after petitioning 100,000 signatures from eligible voters.

The constitutional amendment only bans the construction of minarets, and has no other impact on mosques, while a cornerstone of the Swiss constitution, the freedom of religious worship, is unchanged.

Vatican criticism

Nonetheless, the Vatican on Monday endorsed criticism by Swiss bishops, underlining that the ban represented a blow to religious freedom.

Switzerland has just four minarets, which are not allowed to broadcast the call to prayer, as well as some 200 mosques, according to official sources.

While criticizing the ban, Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf acknowledged that the result “reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies” that “have to be taken seriously.”

International reaction was critical.

“It’s an expression of quite a bit of prejudice and maybe even fear, but it is clear that it is a negative signal in every way, there’s no doubt about it,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the European Union presidency.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, called the vote “an expression of intolerance and I detest intolerance.”

Egypt’s Mufti Ali Gomaa, the Egyptian government’s official interpreter of Islamic law, denounced the minaret ban as an “insult” to Muslims across the world.

Muslims account for just five percent of Switzerland’s population of 7.5 million people, and form the third largest religious group after the dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant communities.

It’s a peril that only a crack team of health and safety experts could have uncovered.

After two years and £250,000, they found that ten-pin bowling alleys up and down the country could be a ‘very dangerous’ environment for families.

They concluded that it was too easy for children or teenagers to run down lanes and get trapped in machinery that sets up the pins — even though there was no record of any such accident having happened.

The bizarre Health and Safety Executive report found that members of the public would be at risk if they walked along the 60-foot lanes to knock over pins by hand.

Its authors even considered ordering every bowling alley to put barriers across lanes. But they were forced to admit defeat — after realising that bowlers must be able to see what they are aiming at.

Doctors should give patients advice on climate change, a leading body of medical experts has claimed.

The Climate and Health Council, a collaboration of worldwide health organisations including the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society of Medicine, believes there is a direct link between climate change and better health.

Their controversial plan would see GPs and nurses give out advice to their patients on how to lower their carbon footprint.

The Council believes that climate change “threatens to radically undermine the health of all peoples”.

It believes health professionals are ideally placed to promote change because “we have ethical responsibility…as well as the capacity to influence people and our political representatives to take the necessary action”.

Parents are being forced to undergo checks to prove they are not paedophiles simply to accompany their children to school Christmas carol events.

Graham McArthur, headmaster of Somersham primary school in Cambridgeshire, said that criminal checks were being carried out on more than 20 parents volunteering to walk his 330 pupils to a carol service at nearby St John’s church later this month.

The new leader of the UK Independence Party, Lord Pearson, claimed more than £100,000 in publicly-funded expenses on the basis that his £3.7 million house in London was his second home while also owning in a 12,000-acre estate with servants in Scotland.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a businessman and peer who warned that the MPs’ expenses scandal exposed a “growing gulf between the political class and the British people” was last week elected leader of Ukip.

He has sat in the Lords since 1990. Since 2001, the earliest year for which expenses records are available, he has told the Parliamentary authorities that his estate beside Loch Rannoch, Perthshire, is his “main home”.

This enabled him to claim about £100,000 in taxpayer-funded overnight subsistence allowances between April 2001 and June 2007 for staying at his town house in Victoria, one mile away from Parliament in central London, where he had no mortgage to pay.

Peers can claim £174 a night — with no receipts required — to cover the cost of staying at a second home or hotel room in the capital “for the purpose of attending sittings of the House”.

After selling the flat for £3.7 million In June 2007, Lord Pearson moved to another London flat two miles away in Kennington. He paid £1.2 million for the flat, again without a mortgage. He then claimed another £15,000 in allowances on the basis of his overnight stays there.

Lord Pearson has repeatedly declared in official company documents that his London home was his “usual residential address”.

His London house was also given as the address to which applicants wishing to work as a housekeeper or gardener at the Scottish estate should send their CVs, in an advert placed by Lady Pearson in The Scottish Farmer in January this year.

As well as claiming £115,683 for overnight subsistence, since 2001 Lord Pearson has claimed £56,685 in “day subsistence” allowances. Peers can claim £86.50 a day for meals, drinks and taxis while working in Westminster, with no need for receipts.

The peer — who was paid £40,000 a year for his remaining City work until being elected Ukip leader — also claimed £48,471 in travel expenses — including £10,064 for the cost of flying between Scotland and London in the last two recorded years alone.

Lord Pearson told the Daily Telegraph yesterday that rather than gaining from the allowances system, he had been “impoverished” by his political career. “Working in the Lords has cost me millions,” he said.

“I had to take a substantial cut in my city earnings … from memory I have given up about £200,000 per annum since 1990.”

He said: “My (main) home is in Scotland. I spend almost exactly half the year there.” He said he had cited the London home as his “usual” address in company documents “for convenience” in dealing with business correspondence.

Lord Pearson, 67, made his fortune from Pearson Webb Springbett, the insurance brokers he co-founded in 1964. He was chairman when it was sold to the THB Group in January last year for a multi-million pound sum.

Speaking in the Lords in July about what he called the “parliamentary expenses saga,” Lord Pearson said that he had long been “trying to warn of the growing gulf between us, the political class, and the British people.”

He said that the expenses scandal had “done nothing to endear the people to their political class.”

In a newspaper interview on Saturday he said Parliament had become “irrelevant”. “We should think about abolishing the House of Lords,” he added. “We in Ukip are anti the political class.”

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 27 — Negotiations for Croatia’s membership to the EU are proceeding rapidly and the country could gain membership at the end of 2011 or at the start of 2012. The head Croatian negotiator for EU membership, Vladimir Drobnjak, was speaking at the end of the an accession conference with officials in Brussels today. After the end of the negotiations, the timeline for ratification for membership by the Member States was considered to at least one year. Croatia has today closed three chapters of EU membership negotiations and aims to take new steps forward in a new accession conference at ministerial level which will probably take place on December 21, still under the Swedish EU presidency. Zagrebs aim is to conclude negotiations by summer 2010. (ANSAmed).

(ANSAmed) — SAN DEMETRIO CORONE (COSENZA), NOVEMBER 26 — Italian and Albanian publishing is enriched by anew volume. It is the ‘Fialor italisht-arbrisht-shqip iilustruar’ (Italo-Albanian illustrated dictionary, volume two), the book that takes into consideration the lexical and morphological variations of the words in use in the six Albanian language centres along the Ionic coast in the province of Cosenza: S. Giorgio Albanese, Vaccarizzo Albanese, S. Demetrio Corone, Macchia Albanese, S.Cosmo Albanese and Santa Sofia d’Epiro. Inserted as a part of the series “Linguistic minorities” from Edizioni Orizzonti Meridionali and financed by the “Destra Crati” Mountain Community and the City of S.Demetrio Corone, the publication is the result of the work of Costantino Bellusci from Plataci, a religion teacher at middle and elementary schools, and Flavia D’Agostino from Civita, a foreign languages teacher. The authors have included the terms that are most common in the spoken language, above all to allow the Italian-Albanian communities above to understand each other thanks to a clear and complete organisation; the association of images to the words, about 300 illustrations, which make memorising the terms easier. (ANSAmed).

(ANSAmed) — PODGORICA (MONTENEGRO), NOVEMBER 27 — NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said last night in Podgorica, Montenegro, that the doors of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation were open to countries wanting to belong to it, according to the government of the Balkan country. The announcement was made at the end of a meeting between Rasmussen and Montenegro’s Defence and Foreign Ministers, Milan Rocen and Boro Vucinic. Rasmussen also expressed satisfaction over Montenegro’s decision to send 31 soldiers to Afghanistan. Montenegro is the first stop of the NATO secretary general on his visit to the Balkans. Today Rasmussen will be going to Bosnia, another country which aspires to become a NATO member.(ANSAmed).

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, NOVEMBER 27 — Italy will donate a million euros to Morocco to promote the use of energy-saving lightbulbs. The agreement was signed in Rabat by the minister for Energy, Mining and the Environment, Amina Benkhadra, and by the director general of the Ministry for the Environment, Corrado Clini. The donation is part of the Mediterranean Renewable Energy Programme (MedREP) launched by the Italian Ministry for the commercialisation of 15 million energy-saving lightbulbs, aimed above all at the residential sector. Projects like this, said Clini, not only represent a concrete step towards the safety of energy provision, but they also contribute to the protection of the environment and to the reduction of greenhouse gases. The Moroccan minister declared that Moroccos strategy is heading in the direction of renewable energy and pointed out the project announced at the beginning of November for a solar complex which will have total power of 2000 MW. (ANSAmed).

On these days, to exemplify the parable of Israel’s condition in the Middle East, you can look to the worst of all deals : the exchange of 1 innocent boy, an unexperienced Israeli army corporal, still held in cruel segregation from the day of the kidnapping in June 2006 by a gang of thugs, with 1400 Palestinian prisoners condemned by the most rigorous processes that can be ensured by justice. Among them, at least a hundred life convicts, murderers, serial killers of women and children.

Now is the time when definitive names are decided, while Israel is trying not to free the most fanatical murderers, those who probably will return to kill. But Israel is subject to two special extraordinary forces: total devotion to life and will of survival, saving the children for their parents and on the other hand, the cynicism of a world that always pushes Israel to consider giving up, as if it needed to make amends…!

As in a vortex of guilt Netanyahu, right in the middle of such controversial negotiation, announced yesterday his decision to stop any construction in the settlements for the next ten months, another seed of dissent within his people, as the one concerning Gilad too, but at the same time a proof of diligence and good behavior, demanded by the international forum.

Hamas, meanwhile, mischievous, puts off the decision on Shalit to Monday, with orders and counter-orders from Damascus and Cairo. The German mediator is in shambles, Shalit’s parents using every minute, and their heroic faith, to knock on the doors of politicians and rabbis to have them ask for an exchange. At the same time Roni Karman, Mendelevich Yossi, Yossi Tzur, the parents of three boys killed in the March 2003 on number 37 bus in Haifa are asking the High Court to oppose the release of murderers.

Is it right or wrong to consider the life of a soldier worth the release of such ferocity to the world? Just letting free Hammed Ibrahim, military leader of Hamas in the West Bank, who killed in the attacks he organized 76 people? Or Abdullah Barghouti “the engineer” who prepared all ther explosives that caused bloodshed in Jerusalem between 2001 and 2003? His victims, the Sbarro restaurant, the University Cafeteria of Mount Scopus, are at least 46. Or Sayed Abbas, who masterminded the suicide bombing in a Natanya hotel in 2002, in which 30 Israelis were killed, including many elderly Holocaust survivors who celebrated together with families, the ritual meal of Passover, and many others.

In the list the most famous is Marwan Barghouti, who is said that, once released, will replace Abu Mazen. If that happens, Hamas could support a single candidate because, once Barghouti is released owing to its good offices, the former head of the Fatah Tanzim will owe them this favour. His most recent photos show him smiling in prison among inmates of various political groups. But Barghouti has collected five life sentences, is the real organizer of the second Intifada, we interviewed him several times in Ramallah. He was Arafat’s man, who invented

and controlled on his behalf the logistics of the terrorists and their explosive belts. Barghouti, if released, can replace Abu Mazen, certainly, but this means nothing at all for peace.

The node is not political, is a moral one. What is right? Israel will make the impossible exchange, every soldier must be sure of being saved if he falls into captivity. It is understandable that a country, so little and abandoned to itself, is deeply united around the value of life. Too bad that, all around, millions of people will make of this choice an invitation to kidnap and kill again.

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV — The release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghuti as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas has been called for by the Israeli daily Haaretz. According to the authors of the article, Barghuti has proved to be a “leader of the Palestinian populace” and in the past also worked for reconciliation between the two populations. “Even if it is admitted that Barghuti is a dangerous terrorist,” wrote the newspaper, “he is certainly not the worst of those who will be freed as part of the exchange. The advantage for the peace process which could result from his release outweighs that of his being kept in prison.” Barghuti is currently serving five life sentences for his involvement in terrorist attacks. The ups and downs of a possible, imminent agreement with Hamas is given widespread coverage. Israel seems to continue opposing the release of Barghuti and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Ahmed Saadat. Hamas, instead, is said to continue to reject compulsory exile for the leaders of its armed wing who would be released (in exchange for Israel corporal Gilad Shalit) and is willing to agree to this solution only in exceptional cases.(ANSAmed).

The venerable Brill Encyclopedia of Islam (EOI) entry on minarets makes plain that minarets are a political statement of Islamic supremacism. Interestingly, given current Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s provocative statement while mayor of Istanbul (the full statement was quoted in a NY Times story www.kurdistan.org/Washington/nyt.html [1] by Stephen Kinzer from 2/16/1998: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes are our helmets, the minarets are our swords, and the faithful are our army”), cited by opponents of minaret construction in Switzerland [2]—the observations from the Brill EOI about the Ottoman perspective on minarets are of particular note.

From the official Brill Encyclopedia of Islam entry on the minaret:

“It seems on the whole unrelated to its function of the adhan [q.v.] calling the faithful to prayer, which can be made quite adequately from the roof of the mosque or even from the house-top. During the lifetime of the Prophet, his Abyssinian slave Bilal [q.v.], was responsible for making the call to prayer in this way. The practice continued for another generation, a fact which demonstrates that the minaret is not an essential part of Islamic ritual. To this day, certain Islamic communities, especially the most orthodox ones like the Wahhabis in Arabia, avoid building minarets on the grounds that they are ostentatious and unnecessary. … It must be remembered, however, that throughout the mediaeval period, the role of the minaret oscillated between two polarities: as a sign of power and as an instrument for the adhan.”

[Re: Ottoman minarets]: “These gigantic, needle-sharp lances clustered protectively, like a guard of honour, around the royal dome, have a distinctly aggressive and ceremonial impact, largely dependent on their almost unprecedented proportions; the pair of minarets flanking the Süleymaniye dome are each some 70m. high.”…

(ANSA)- DUBAI, NOVEMBER 27 — While international financial markets continue their fits of jitters at a feared “domino effect of the Dubai affair”, the Emirate itself appears sunk in the hushed calm of the slow-paced days of Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice. Offices, banks and institutes closed: this is an aspect which Dubai World may well have considered in choosig the day on which to announce its request for restructuring of its debt — just a few hours ahead of the holiday. A cushioning period for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and for the oil-rich Gulf states which observe Eid, sparing the Emirati and regional bourses the immediate impact and giving time to international stock markets to absorb the punch before the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE and Oman, open for trading again. “The closure of the regional stock markets certainly helped in avoiding immediate fall-out in terms of stock prices” writes IRF Gulf Capital Market in its bulletin, stressing that no “significant manoeuvres” can be expected before next week. This appointment was also set by Sheik Ahmad al Maktum, who, in his statement thursday evening stressed that “Dubai World’s move had been carefully planned,” and anticipated that “further details” would soon be revealed “at the start of next week”. Between those running scared and others keeping their cool among global financial operators, the first statements of “a manageable crisis” have been heard among British economists interviewed by the Al-Arabya satellite network. Much calmer thoughts compared to the worrying negative analyses with which the Anglo-Saxon press is filled, almost in parallel to the detached and matter-of-fact tone in which news of the moratorium spread through the United Arab Emirates, where a much higher profile was given to the 5 billion dollars in bonds received by Dubai from two Abu Dhabi banks: the Al Hilal and the National. The role played by Emirati capital, which has already come to Dubai’s rescue over past months, is the question mark that crops up in Emirati financial circles. “Why didn’t Abu Dhabi intervene quicker? Why did it allow Dubai to slide into the perilous situation? Or maybe even Abu Dhabi finds itself in a tight financial spot and can’t bail out Dubai?”, speculated a director of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), who prefers to remain anonymous, in an interview with ANSA. The coming weeks will supply the answers to these questions; SCB says in its briefing “it is likely that Dubai has to re-examine its economic model based on property investments and influxes of foreign capital”.(ANSAmed).

Stock markets in the Gulf emirate of Dubai and its neighboring capital of Abu Dhabi fell sharply on Monday and then ground to a halt amid a lack of buyers after Dubai World’s shock proposal to suspend debt payments.

Dubai’s benchmark DFM Index dropped by 7.30 percent as leading securities, including construction and finance, plunged almost by the maximum-allowed limit of 10 percent at the opening, which followed the four-day Eid holiday.

The market was trading in the midday session at 1,940.36 points, down 152.80 points from Wednesday’s close, just before the Dubai government’s shock announcement it wants to freeze debt repayments by Dubai World conglomerate for at least six months.

The DFM Index finished trading on Wednesday at 2093.16, up around 28 percent this year, though still two-thirds below its all-time highs two years ago.

The two markets have so far shed around $10 billion of their market capitalization.

Trading almost froze in both markets amid high offers to sell and negligible offers to buy, with Dubai market registering only 31.5 million dirhams ($8.6 million) in turnover — less than 10 percent of average daily trade this year.

“This was expected because markets have panicked over exaggerated reports in the Western media,” Al-Fajr analyst Hamam al-Shamaa told AFP.

“We expect to see many foreign portfolios withdrawing from the market. Their exit obviously terrifies local investors,” he said, adding that the drop will continue on Tuesday.

“I do not expect investors to enter the market. Tomorrow will most likely be a similar day,” he added, pointing out that the markets go into another four-day holiday starting Wednesday.

But he expected local markets to bounce back after the holiday. “I expect good news during the holiday,” he said.

One of the key loans affected by Dubai World’s planned debt moratorium is a Nakheel issue of $3.5 billion of Islamic bonds or sukuks, scheduled to mature on Dec. 14.

Securities listed by port operator DP World, part of Dubai World, on NasdaqDubai exchange dropped by 14.88 percent, and were the most active stock on the market, according to NasdaqDubai website.

Investors failed to draw reassurance from the UAE central bank’s announcement on Sunday that it was providing additional liquidity to the UAE banks.

Other Gulf stock markets have also been on holiday since Thursday for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, sparing them an immediate impact from Dubai’s announcement.

However, the news sent shock waves throughout other markets around the world on Thursday and Friday as investors feared a possible default by Dubai and its state-owned businesses, which together owe $80 billion.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the only Gulf stock markets open on Monday. Kuwait follows on Tuesday and Saudi Arabia’s financial market, the largest Arab bourse in capitalization, will remain on holiday until Saturday.

Dubai does not have big oil reserves, unlike Abu Dhabi which sits on around 95 percent of the UAE’s crude deposits and runs the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund valued by analysts at $400 to $500 billion.

Two Abu Dhabi-controlled banks subscribed to Dubai bonds worth five billion dollars in a deal announced a few hours before Dubai revealed its debt problems.

But doubts have been growing about Abu Dhabi’s commitment to buoy Dubai, whose growth came to a screeching halt amid the global credit crunch before going into reverse gear.

Property prices in the once-booming desert city have slumped by 50 percent from their peak.

DUBAI — A man who allegedly raped and murdered a six-year-old boy in the bathroom of a mosque in Dubai has been arrested. A Dubai Police source said the operations room received information that a Pakistani child was found dead in the bathroom of a mosque located in Al Qusais on Friday.

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI — It was an extremely negative day for the stock exchanges in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which ended the day’s trading in sharp decline. The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) was down by -7.30%, after opening with an immediate plunge of around 5%. The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange opened flat but then ended up suffering even larger losses and closed at -8.30%. The steep drop in the day of reopening after the five-day holiday has come on the heels of the announcement Wednesday of Dubai World’s debt restructuring, which had also shaken international markets over the past few days. Yesterday the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took action to shore up banks operating on its territory, ordering liquidity to cushion the potential impact on the stocks of the credit institutes most-exposed to Dubai World’s request for debt restructuring. The announcement last Wednesday of a request for a debt moratorium came just before the Islamic holiday Eid Al-Adha, during which the stock exchanges of oil-rich Gulf countries were closed. On Saturday, Dubai’s neighbouring Gulf country and one of the largest oil exporters in the world — as well as capital of the United Arab Emirates — Abu Dhabi came to its rescue, though only with limited measures. It announced that it would help out the nearby, indebted emirate of Dubai, but only on a case by case basis and not underwriting all the debt of the state-held Dubai World. Meanwhile, technical experts at Deloitte, Rotshschild and Alix Partners are attempting to restructure Dubai World’s debt, and there will be a number of options to look into. The holding could pay off by December 14 the 3.52-billion dollar ‘sukuk’ (Islamic bond) issued by Nakheel, the real estate operator famous for having built the palm-shaped islands, and set other deadlines for the rest of the debt. Another solution may be to pay back 80% of the debt both to bond holders and to banks. Otherwise Dubai World could go forward with its plan to ask for the previously announced debt moratorium with a freeze on payments until 30 May 2010. In the worst case scenario, reports The National, Dubai World could bring in asset liquidation in response to possible legal actions on the part of its creditors.(ANSAmed).

Five British sailors are being held hostage after their racing yacht may have inadvertently strayed into Iranian waters.

The Foreign Office confirmed that the racing yacht owned by Sail Bahrain and crewed by five British sailors was detained by the Iranian Navy on November 25.

The Team Pindar vessel is believed to have been sailing from Bahrain to Dubai on its way to the Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race which began on November 25.

The five crew members are still in Iran and are understood to be safe and well and their families have been informed, the statement added.

Foreign Office officials “immediately contacted the Iranian authorities in London and in Tehran on the evening of 25 November, both to seek clarification and to try and resolve the matter swiftly,” Foreign Secretary David Miliband said today.

‘Our ambassador in Tehran has raised the issue with the Iranian Foreign Ministry and we have discussed the matter with the Iranian Embassy in London.

‘I hope this issue will soon be resolved. We will remain in close touch with the Iranian authorities, as well as the families,’ he said.

However, an Iranian Foreign Ministry official said he was not aware of reports a British yacht had been stopped. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Fears were growing that the detention of the British sailors will dramatically increase tensions between Iran and the West. The country has come under increasing pressure in response to its plans to build 10 new nuclear fuel plants.

According to the Team Pindar website, members of Sail Bahrain were due to arrive in Dubai on November 26 on board the Kingdom of Bahrain race yacht. The event was to be the boat’s first offshore race, said its website, adding that the vessel had been fitted with a satellite tracker.

The site says: ‘Skippering the Kingdom of Bahrain entry is experienced offshore sailor and Team Director of Sail Bahrain, Nick Crabtree who, along with members of his shore crew, will be joined by Bahrain’s national sailing hero, Sami Kooheji and Captain Peter Gronberg, Managing Director of GAC, one of the largest shipping companies in the region and logistics partner to Sail Bahrain.’

So far the Foreign Office has refused to name any of the crew members being held.

Oil prices spiked as news of the crew’s plight broke, with crude oil climbing $1.40 to $77.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after seesawing at around $76 for much of the session.

Prices rose on the specter of some kind of confrontation between the British and the Iranians, one of the world’s biggest producer of oil.

In March 2007 HMS Cornwall made headlines around the world in March when seven Royal Marines and eight sailors were arrested at gunpoint.

The humiliation was compounded as the Iranians gleefully exploited the propaganda opportunities in the following days, broadcasting footage of the hostages apologising for straying into Iranian waters, and warmly thanking president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for releasing them.

Finally the decision to let two of the sailors, Faye Turney and Arthur Batchelor, sell their stories back in the UK caused a fierce backlash and left Defence Secretary Des Browne fighting for his job.

The dramatic development came as Iran fought off an international backlash over its plan to build 10 new nuclear enrichment plants.

The US and its allies fear the facilities give Iran the capability to produce weapons-grade nuclear material and have called for an immediate halt to the enrichment of uranium.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group announced a new political strategy on Monday that tones down Islamist rhetoric but maintains a tough line against Israel and the United States, which it accused of terrorism while vowing to keep its weapons.

The new manifesto drops reference to an Islamic republic in Lebanon, which has a substantial Christian population, confirming changes to Hezbollah thinking about the need to respect Lebanon’s diversity.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who read the new “political document” at a news conference, said it was time the group introduced pragmatic changes without dropping its commitment to an Islamist ideology tied to the clerical establishment in Iran.

“People evolve. The whole world changed over the past 24 years. Lebanon changed. The world order changed,” he said via a video link.

Stressing a history of struggle against Israel, the 32-page document said Hezbollah had to remain alert and wary of Israel: “Israel represents a constant threat and an impending danger to Lebanon.”

Nasrallah, reading from the document, said U.S. “arrogance” prevented Hezbollah and other Arabs and Muslims from forging a friendship with the United States, Israel’s chief ally.

“The American administration’s unlimited support to Israel … places the American administration in the position of the enemy of our nation and our peoples,” he said.

No disarmament

Nasrallah said Hezbollah needed to keep its arms, despite opposition from Western-backed political groups in Lebanon.

“The (resistance) is a permanent national necessity that should last as long as the Israeli threat, and in the absence of a strong, stable state in Lebanon,” he said, quoting the document.

Hezbollah was formed with the backing of Iranian Revolutionary Guards during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It came out into the open as a mainly guerrilla group in 1985 but quickly began establishing social and medical networks among Lebanon’s impoverished Shiite community.

Nasrallah said a new political document for Hezbollah was needed to cope with events since the last manifesto in 1985, when Hezbollah was more of an armed resistance group fighting Israeli occupation forces.

Hezbollah members first entered parliament in 1992 and in 2005 the group it had its first government minister, completing its rehabilitation as a political party.

Attacks by Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, were instrumental in Israel’s decision to withdraw from south Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.

Hezbollah, listed as a terrorist group by the United States, also fought a war with Israel in 2006 that cost Lebanon a heavy civilian toll but its guerrilla force was not defeated on the ground.

The manifesto pledges that the group would strengthen itself despite a 2006 U.N. resolution than bans arms in south Lebanon.

Israel says Syria and Iran are arming Hezbollah against international law. The manifesto confirms the need to maintain close ties with the two countries.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah has become a global model of how to fight occupation.

Iran has announced plans to build ten new uranium enrichment plants in a major expansion of its atomic programme, just two days after the U.N. nuclear watchdog rebuked it for carrying out such work in secret.

The defiant move by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government will further aggravate tensions between the Islamic Republic and major powers over Iranian nuclear activities, and may accelerate calls for more U.N. sanctions against the country.

AFP — Iran has given the Revolutionary Guards Corps command over naval operations in the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz as part of a strategy to block access to vital sea lanes in the event of a war, according to a US intelligence study.

The military reorganization launched in 2007 transfers responsibility for the Gulf from the regular navy to the elite Guards’ naval force, which has an arsenal of small, high-speed boats and cruise missiles, said the study by the US Office of Naval Intelligence.

According to the United Nations, five thousand women a year are victims of so-called “honor killings.” These women are murdered, often by family members, for perceived cultural offenses, like getting pregnant out of wedlock. Jordanian journalist Rana Husseini has spent more than a decade investigating honor killings in her home country. She talks about her new book Murder In the Name of Honor .

Saddam Hussein ordered his secret agents to attack the Prague headquarters of U.S. run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to end broadcasting to Iraq, a Czech intelligence service spokesman said on Sunday.

The attack was ordered by the then Iraqi leader in 2000 and Iraqi intelligence agents planned to use weapons including rocket propelled grenades, Kalashnikov rifles and submachine guns, spokesman Jan Subert told Czech TV Nova.

“Saddam Hussein ordered his intelligence to violently disrupt Iraqi broadcasting of the Radio Free Europe and for this operation he provided significant financial means,” Subert told the station.

He said the weapons had been stockpiled for the attack after they were brought into the country in an Iraqi diplomatic car.

It was not known when the attack was due to take place but Subert told the television station that Czech intelligence discovered the plot and the Iraqis submitted the weapons to Czech authorities in 2003.

The plan was for the attack to take place from the window of a nearby flat that the Iraqis planned to rent as an office for a fake company, he said.

There were fears the broadcaster, financed by the U.S. Congress, might be target of an attack after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

In 2003, the police and the army temporarily boosted security in and around the radio station’s offices, located at the top of Wenceslas square in the historic centre of Prague at an old communist parliament premises.

The headquarters have since been moved to a new closely guarded building in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Prague.

(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 27 — The EIB has granted Syria a 50 million euros fund to partially cover the projects presented for the improvement of local Syrian urban infrastructure. The agreement was signed in Damascus.(ANSAmed).

The press in Turkey is anything but free, currently ranking 122 of 175 in the Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index. And it looks set to drop further, writes Soli Ozel, in a tirade against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. The prime minister seems to have won the war against Aydin Dogan’s media group, even before the multi-billion tax fines were due for payment. “The prime minister has succeeded in dissolving the monopoly of the Dogan Group, by pulling strings and enabling his business allies to buy up its newspapers and TV channels. As a result the Turkish media has diversified, at least as far as ownership goes. But the new buyers are uncritical supporters of the ruling party. The newspapers and TV channels are the most important — if not the only — platforms where criticism and opposition can form against the government. To gag the media like this is an act of pure suppression and intimidation, not only of the publishers but of the entire economy.”

Aleksandr Fomenko, an independent analyst, has claimed that the Nevsky Express train crash was specially orchestrated by the enemies of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

“Prime Minister Putin has got a lot of enemies — not only disappointed criminal Godfathers in the country or undisciplined oligarchs abroad, but also some global players. But, of course, we cannot know the exact name of the mastermind of this attack. The most important question is why this happened at this moment — after the reconciliation with the American administration, after the visit of Mr. Miliband to Moscow — when the international situation for Kremlin looked too good to last long. Especially when the economic situation is far from good. That is why these people decided to create some kind of instability in the country,” Fomenko believes.

In October, Lutheran Bishop Margot Kässman of Hanover, Germany, was elected as the first woman and, at 51, the youngest cleric to head the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), an umbrella body of Protestant churches with 24 million members. She is known for her frank views and books about faith in daily life, including a book published in September recounting her diagnosis with breast cancer and subsequent divorce. The mother of four daughters was elected to chair the EKD Council for a six-year term.

In November, a cold wind from Moscow blew over the EKD decision.

Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion, who directs external relations for that church, said on November 11 that Kässmann’s election as chairperson of EKD could terminate the half-century-old dialogue between the two churches.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s government is trying to help a woman recover her 5-year-old son from Belgium after her estranged husband took him there and defied an Islamic court order granting her custody of the child, news reports said Sunday.

The case has stirred religious sensitivities in this Muslim-majority country partly because Elis Syuhaila Mokhtar has voiced doubts about whether her Dutch husband, who converted to Islam before they married in 2001, was raising their child according to Islamic principles.

President Obama has offered Pakistan an expanded strategic partnership, including additional military and economic cooperation, while warning with unusual bluntness that its use of insurgent groups to pursue policy goals “cannot continue.”

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — Three Spanish aid workers were kidnapped while delivering supplies to impoverished villages in the desert West African nation of Mauritania, their organization said Monday.

Two men and a woman were kidnapped, according to Julia Tabernejo, a spokeswoman for Barcelona-based aid group Barcelona Accion Solidaria, which does humanitarian work in several African countries including Mauritania. She gave their names as Albert Vilalta, Roque Pascual and Alicia Gamez.

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The recruits gather in scorching desert hideouts in Somalia, use portraits of President Barack Obama for target practice, learn how to make and detonate bombs, and vow allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

Training camps in the lawless nation of Somalia are attracting hundreds of foreigners, including Americans, and Somalis recruited by a local insurgent group linked to al-Qaida, according to local and U.S. officials. American officials and private analysts say the camps pose a security threat far beyond the borders of Somalia, including to the U.S. homeland.

In interviews with The Associated Press, former trainees gave rare details on the camps, which are scattered along desert footpaths, rutted roads and steamy coastal dens. They say the recruits are told the United States is the enemy of Islam.

Semanario Verdad Latinoamericana reports that nurses in a Bolivian hospital are forced to wear a hijab veil at their jobs.

The article, Bolivia: enfermeras son obligadas a llevar velo, says that state newspaper Cambio (link to their website here, but no link to their report on the hospital) reported that following a donation of $1.2 million USdollars by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit Wednesday last week, the nurses at a hospital in El Alto have to wear a veil due to the conditions set by Iran.

Thirty-three Cubans landed in the cooling canals of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant at mid-day Thursday, Florida Power & Light reported to nuclear regulators.

The site is supposed to be protected by around-the-clock security, but the report indicates that at 1:28 p.m. on Thanksgiving day a member of the Cuban group called the Turkey Point control room saying they had landed in the canal area with 29 adults and four children.

The control room then called plant security, “who located and assumed control over the Cuban nationals without incident.” Security called Miami-Dade police for assistance. Police arrived at 2:25 p.m., which then called U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

FPL did not immediately respond to a Herald question about why its security forces had not intercepted the Cubans before they landed.

After the 9/11 attacks, federal authorities demanded that nuclear power plants beef up security to make sure terrorists couldn’t get close to the reactors.

It is difficult to write about Jewish traitors, but I have the obligation to do so. My life as an American and a Jew is rooted in one miracle: individual liberty and freedom of speech and conscience. We are living in dangerous times, times when men of good will are afraid to speak out. There are some things you cannot say in America today.

I will say them anyway.

(…)

….Let’s be clear: The ADL has nothing to do with Judaism, Jews, or Jewish Survival. It is a collection of communists, anarchists, Jewish 60’s drop-outs, bitter about their nothing status and eager to spread their venom about a socialist paradise at which they believe only they can succeed. (The earlier Bolsheviks and Trotskyite’s, they assure us, just didn’t get it right.!)

It’s more than interesting how Obama has surrounded himself with these same radical leftist rejects from the 60’s. Interesting also, is how the ADL and the present administration are working hand in glove to make us safer with insane, counter-productive “Hate Crime” legislation.

Now, the ADL is on the warpath again, this time advocating for a federal data bank to be housed (with them?) in Washington, where each American can be monitored and pursued, for ever having said anything “hateful.”

And what is the definition of “hateful,” you ask? Simple, whatever the ADL dictates. And how, you’ll ask can that possibly happen here in the land of the Free, the home of the Brave? Again, simple: just play the anti-Semitic race card, and you will have people tripping all over themselves to acquiesce to your every whim.

(…)

Isn’t it amazing? We’re not allowed to have the Ten Commandments in our schools. No “minute of prayer” allowed. No mention of G-d allowed. But plenty of mind control about how the White Christians have destroyed the earth and must be neutralized. The Day of the multiculturalists is here, aided and abetted by the ADL, using “hate speech” as the Trojan horse that will destroy our once-great America.

(…)

I find myself having crossed the political Rubicon. As a conservative, passionate advocate of America’s freedom for individual liberties and speech, I have become a pariah in the Jewish community. Who knows, maybe the ADL is monitoring this very message?! But one thing is clear: I stand on the shoulders of many great Americans who have given their lives for this great land. I will not shirk from my responsibility as an American, as a beneficiary of this grand and blessed legacy. I hope that my urgent words are heeded and that people will wake up about those alien forces threatening our very lives.

To all my friends throughout America: G-d bless you, and G-d bless America

“What we are faced with is a tyranny, world wide, over the mind and body of man, and it is the duty of every red blooded United States citizen to oppose with every fiber of his being what is being done…by this Administration to try and sign away your Constitution at Copenhagen.” -Lord Christopher Monckton November 28, 2009 More…

“There’s gold in them thar hills!” Lawyers need to get off their butts, and realize what a financial bonanza the Climategate criminal scam represents. The possibilities for financial remuneration are mind boggling.

For patriotic, conservative lawyers, this should be a “no brainer.” But even ambulance chasing weasels, who care about nothing but money, should be clamoring to get on the bandwagon.

The possibilities for them to make money out of Climategate, are almost endless-as is the amount of money the public has been defrauded of, and continues to be robbed of. “Global warming” scam, Criminal intent to defraud the public of massive amounts of money, advance an ideological agenda

It is now clear that the entire CO2/global-warming scam has been one Big Lie; a lie that continues to bilk people out of billions, possibly trillions, of dollars. There is no reason to put litigation off any longer.

I watch the news and comments about climate claims and The Copenhagen Summit with increasing frustration. Despite the recent email revelations and growing numbers of scientists who are defecting to the good side, people are still not getting it!…

Leaked emails have revealed the unwillingness of climate change scientists to engage in a proper debate with the sceptics who doubt global warming

The storm began with just four cryptic words. “A miracle has happened,” announced a contributor to Climate Audit, a website devoted to criticising the science of climate change.

“RC” said nothing more — but included a web link that took anyone who clicked on it to another site, Real Climate.

There, on the morning of November 17, they found a treasure trove: a thousand or so emails sent or received by Professor Phil Jones, director of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

Jones is a key player in the science of climate change. His department’s databases on global temperature changes and its measurements have been crucial in building the case for global warming.

What those emails suggested, however, was that Jones and some colleagues may have become so convinced of their case that they crossed the line from objective research into active campaigning.

In one, Jones boasted of using statistical “tricks” to obliterate apparent declines in global temperature. In another he advocated deleting data rather than handing them to climate sceptics. And in a third he proposed organised boycotts of journals that had the temerity to publish papers that undermined the message.

It was a powerful and controversial mix — far too powerful for some. Real Climate is a website designed for scientists who share Jones’s belief in man-made climate change. Within hours the file had been stripped from the site.

Several hours later, however, it reappeared — this time on an obscure Russian server. Soon it had been copied to a host of other servers, first in Saudi Arabia and Turkey and then Europe and America.

What’s more, the anonymous poster was determined not to be stymied again. He or she posted comments on climate-sceptic blogs, detailing a dozen of the best emails and offering web links to the rest. Jones’s statistical tricks were now public property.

Steve McIntyre, a prominent climate sceptic, was amazed. “Words failed me,” he said. Another, Patrick Michaels, declared: “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud.”

[…]

David Holland, an engineer from Northampton, is one of a number of sceptics who believe the unit has got this process wrong. When he submitted a request for the figures under freedom of information laws he was refused because it was “not in the public interest”.

Others who made similar requests were turned down because they were not academics, among them McIntyre, a Canadian who runs the Climate Audit website.

A genuine academic, Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph in Canada, also tried. He said: “I was rejected for an entirely different reason. The [unit] told me they had obtained the data under confidentiality agreements and so could not supply them. This was odd because they had already supplied some of them to other academics, but only those who support the idea of climate change.”

IT was against this background that the emails were leaked last week, reinforcing suspicions that scientific objectivity has been sacrificed. There is unease even among researchers who strongly support the idea that humans are changing the climate. Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said: “Over the last decade there has been a very political battle between the climate sceptics and activist scientists.

“It seems to me that the scientists have lost touch with what they were up to. They saw themselves as in a battle with the sceptics rather than advancing scientific knowledge.”

The Secretary General of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu voiced his disappointment and concern with the result of the public referendum which took place in Switzerland yesterday, 29th November 2009, on the initiative to ban building of minarets in the mosques in Switzerland.

The Secretary General qualified the ban as an unfortunate development that would tarnish the image of Switzerland as a country upholding respect for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights and also as a recent example of growing anti-Islamic incitements in Europe by the extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist, scare-mongering ultra-right politicians who reign over common sense, wisdom and universal values.

He recalled that the UN Commitee on Human Rights had clearly pronounced its concern on the ban as a disciminatory practice that violated fundamental human rights including the freedom of religion.

Secretary General Ihsanoglu expressed his deep regret that at a time when the Muslim world and Muslim societies around the world have been engaged in a struggle to fight extremism, the western societies are being hostage to extremists who exploit Islam as a scapegoat and a springboard to develop their own political agenda which in turn contributes to polarization and fragmentation in the societies.

He stated that the development also highlighted the need for promoting genuine dialogue at the grass-roots level to alleviate all misunderstandings and misinformation that lead to intolerance and misconceptions.

In this regard, he appreciated the position of many Swiss political and religious leaders from all sides who expressed unequivocally their rejection for any attempt to undermine the rights of Muslims in Switzerland.

The issue was taken up yesterday, between the OIC Secretary General and Foreign Minister of Swiss Confederation Mrs. Micheline Calmy-Rey who called the OIC Secretary General by phone following the official announcement regarding the results of the voting. The Secretary General conveyed to the Swiss Foreign Minister that with due respect to the sovereign and legitimate right of the Swiss people and democratic principles governing the Swiss Confederation in adopting any legislative measure, the decision of the Swiss people stood to be interpreted as xenophobic, prejudiced, discriminative and against the universal human rights values and it would tarnish the reputation of the Swiss people as a tolerant and progressive society. The Secretary General urged the Swiss authorities to remain vigilant in addressing any move, which may fuel extremism, misunderstanding, misperception and intolerance among communities and that he remained confident that Swiss political leaders would not spare any effort to preserve the image of their country as guardian of the international human rights instruments.

As the Muslim public opinion is following the issue with concern, the Secretary General appealed to the Muslim societies to abide by peaceful and democratic means in expressing their views on the issue. He stated that the OIC General Secretariat will continue to follow the developments very closely.